Even with reduced arsenals, the most effective first strike possible by the Russians would only result in their effective obliteration.
Not necessarily.
Consider the 311 warhead case that was just offered up by Forsyth and Saltzman as all the US needs for deterrence and which is was discussed on this thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172196&page=3 .
Here's what they suggested (claiming that would be all we need regardless of what nuclear arsenal any potential enemy fields):
100 on Land-Based ICBMs
192 on ohio-class subs
19 on air-launch on B2 bombers
Now unless you are advocating launch on warning … which is highly destabilizing and outright dangerous (boy could I tell you some stories), you are assuming that sufficient warheads would survive a Russian (or Chinese) first strike. But would they?
The 100 land based ICBMs are sitting ducks given the accuracy of modern warheads. If you try to ride out an attack with that number of targets, you can count most of them not surviving a first strike. Even 30 ICBMS, MIRVed of course, would be enough to put 2 or 3 warheads on each silo. Almost guaranteed kills.
Also, at any given time, only about half of the sub force will be at sea. The others can easily be caught in a first strike by SLBMs, with no time to flee. So just like the ICBM silos, they won't likely survive a first strike, if the policy is to ride an attack out before responding. Also some of the subs at sea may not survive. We can't really be sure the other side doesn't know where at least some of them are at any given time. Can we? How many of our subs are being shadowed? And all it would take is a breakthrough in the technology of locating subs and our at sea leg would become extremely vulnerable to a first strike. But let's assume, for now, that half the sub launched missiles could survive … 96 warheads.
And what about the 19 bombers? Bombers on the ground are extremely vulnerable to an SLBM attack. You might have only minutes to fly them to some degree of safety. Only a small fraction could be kept in the air at any one time in peacetime, and thus be relatively invulnerable to a first strike. But doing that would be costly. Also, we don't really like to fly planes that have nuclear weapons on them in peacetime, because of the possibility of an accident. And scrambling bombers in times of crisis can actually destabilize tense international situations. Finally, for cost/security/functionality reasons, bombers tend to be based on only a few locations. So one attacking warhead might manage to take out several bombers. Furthermore, the bombers still have to fly to the target and deliver the weapons. There is no guarantee they'll succeed. Again, technology may create a vulnerability, allowing an enemy to locate even stealth bombers so they can be attacked before they reach their target or even the range to launch ALCMs. Thus, these 19 warheads probably aren't that much more reliably survivable to a first strike and countermeasures than the ICBM warheads. But heck, let's assume that half them survive because … well … we are just *lucky*.
Let's see, that makes a total of about 105 warheads that we might be able to count as a retaliatory strike after even a minor first strike. I say minor because it would only take the missiles from only a couple score of ICBMs and a few MIRVed submarines to take out all the targets mentioned above. Here:
Assume the other side decides to keep 300 launchers (200 ICBMs and 100 SLBMS)? Not warheads, launchers. Afterall, Forsyth and Saltzman claimed the 311 warheads would be adequate regardless of what the other guy has. So let's test that. And instead of single warhead ICBMs, they keep theirs MIRVed (why not?) so that they have over a thousand very accurate ICBM warheads at their disposal. Plus about 1000 SLBM warheads. Suppose they use 300 ICBM warheads (3 on each of our ICBMs) and 300 SLBM warheads (to take out less than 40 potential sub and bomber targets). And drop another 300 warheads on other defense and leadership targets around the world. They still have a 1000 warheads they can use to essentially reduce much of the US government, economy and population to rubble, while keeping hundreds in reserve. In a first strike. We, being the good guys, and afraid that all those missile signals we see coming our way might not be real (boy I could tell you some stories about that) eschew launch on warning and ride out the attack. So our response is the previously calculated 105 relatively small warheads. Now what do we do with them?
And note, I haven't even mentioned national missile/directed energy defense technology yet. That is technology still open to scientific breakthroughs that could potentially defeat a measly 105 warheads or at least reduce that number to a few or few tens of warheads. It's a technology that also might be fielded rather rapidly achieving what's called "breakout". Just as our opponents might hide missiles from agreements (like Russia actually did previously) so they could suddenly field them, putting us at a severe disadvantage. Even now, you certainly aren't going to want to attack Moscow, which is defended by an ABM system with scores of interceptors (100 are allowed), if you only have 105 warheads. Supposedly there was a successful test of that system in 2007. US DoD planners have only said that the system could be defeated by using a relatively small number (in old Cold War terms) of ICBMs equipped with chaff and decoys, but then that only takes away from the 105 you've got available now.
But let's ignore even the threat of potential defense systems. What could you do with 105 surviving warheads to a country like Russia that would make them think twice about a first strike? Remember, most of these are SLBMs, which means they aren't going to be very high yield (perhaps 400-500kt each). Remember, this is a bolt out of the blue so presumably the Russians have quietly gotten as much of their leadership, military, industry and population into hardened facilities before the attack. What do you do with a 105 relatively small warheads?
Do you drop one warhead on 105 Russian cities? Ok. But if you do that you will have no more warheads remaining. Against a country that will have hundreds left (and remember, you didn't attack his launchers so he can reload, perhaps from hidden stockpiles). Fire all your missiles in the retaliatory strike and you'll have no way of attacking Russia's surviving leadership when they decide to come out of the hundreds of nuclear hardened bunkers they have built. So do you try to keep a few of those SLBM missiles back, just to keep your options open? But then you have even fewer warheads to use in your retaliation, don't you. Let's say you opt to keep just 2 missiles on each of your subs. That means you only have 92 warheads to send Russia's way. So does that mean 92 Russian cities die? No.
Because modern cities are big targets and 500kt warheads will only reduce a portion of a big city to rubble. Do you know that the British once calculated that they'd need 32 sub-launched warheads just to effectively destroy (not just disable) Moscow? And that was AFTER first taking out it's ABM system with a whole sub loaded with nothing but missiles carrying decoys. You beginning to get the picture?
The point is that 105 warheads is not enough to even begin to scratch Russia's civil defense system. Or attack hardened military and government targets. Yes, you could certainly severely damage 105 Russian cities, but you couldn't begin to destroy most of them. Vast portions of those cities would escape destruction, as well as their populace. Not so in the US if 1000 warheads are targeted on cities. Russia's government would survive. Ours would not. Much of it's industry would survive. Most of ours would not. Much of it's population would survive. Much of ours would not. And when all was said and done, Russia would still be a powerful nation. Not so the USA. And given such a tradeoff, are you sure that outcome would deter ambitious ex-Communist Russian leaders … like Putin? If so, I think you are being extremely naive.
